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" Total income came in at Rs 1,281.45 crore for Q3FY21, up 48.6 per cent over the year-ago period.Telecom infrastructure provider HFCL is planning to invest ₹125 crore in its R&amp;D in 2020-21 in a bid to capture a large chunk of the ₹40,000 crore communications infrastructure market for civilian market as well as defence forces in the next five years.“The outlook for 2020-21 is very positive and our focus is on expanding revenue from our own designed products,” Mahendra Nahata, managing director of HFCL, told ET.Nahata said that with the government launching PM-Wani (public WiFi), connecting the country with optic fibre cable network through Bharat Broadband, pushing for ‘make in India’, especially for critical sectors like communication and with the pandemic-induced massive uptake for fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) due to increasing demand for high speed broadband, all together were creating massive opportunities for companies like HFCL.HFCL, which is among the largest optic fibre cable producers in the country, also manufactures telecom equipment and has cable business with backward integration into fibre in its portfolio.The company on Thursday posted nearly 87% jump in its consolidated net profit for the December quarter to ₹85.1 crore.It has an order book of ₹7,313 crore and was seeing good opportunities for its indigenously designed and developed products that have application across industries like telecom, railways and defence.Nahata said that the recent national security directive for the telecom sector was another shot in the arm for homegrown ventures, which would be encouraged to invest in research and development of 5G equipment.“5G is another big opportunity,” he said. 5G technology, which is still evolving globally, will require treble the amount of cell sites needed in 4G deployment and very high bandwidth especially at time of downlinking.“This is where you need fibre optic cable and high bandwidth radio in E band, another area we are working at and will soon announce our partnerships,” Nahata added. WiFi 6, the next generation WiFi, was among the array of products under testing, he added. The company is also engaged in starting a design house for 5G small cells.Another priority sector for the company is defence. The first Indian company to have its design of electronic fuses for artillery guns, Nahata said HFCL was in the process of designing software defined radio, a critical area for Indian Army, which will be changing all its communications equipment in the next 10 years. Follow and connect with us on Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, Youtube"
<https://government.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/defence/hfcl-to-put-rs-125-crore-into-rd-to-bag-civilian-and-defence-market-share/80323301>